28 April 2014

I forgot a couple things in my last *few* posts. I took the 3 youngest to Walmart (that is rare indeed) to pick up some party stuff. While there we passed by the blood pressure station. Phillip jumps out of the cart and sticks his arms in. I helped him get both arms squeezed. Afterwards he jumped off the chair, admired his new muscles, and exclaimed that he now had Superman muscles. To demonstrate this he pushed the cart and Everett. Everett thought Phillip's muscles were quite admirable, he got both arms squeezed. I have a feeling we may not be able to pass by another blood pressure machine. They are magical indeed, bestowing Superman powers.

Wednesday evening the YW of our ward came to serve our family. They cleaned, shined, swept, and vacuumed our house. It was soooooo nice. Can you come next month too? The kids thought that was pretty awesome. Alia left her watch at our house. Saturday I noticed Phillip sporting a new watch. I was sure he stole it from someone. He was excited to wear it until I remembered that Alia lost her watch.

We all delivered cupcakes to Amelia's class at school. She was very excited to pass out her treat and even get to take the first bite. Phillip was making all the kids laugh with his silly antics. Everett wanted to share in the limelight with silly faces. Evelyn and Amelia stole the cuteness award. We opened some of the gifts we got her after dinner. She got a new scooter from Grandma and Grandpa Call, a memory game from Grandma Debbie, The Hedbandz game, a dinner question game, a knock-knock joke book, a Gelarti kit, a Friends Lego set, and a Snow Cone machine. I decided to get a real snow cone machine since it only cost a little bit more and would last a lot longer. Come over if you want some shaved ice! She tried out her scooter right away.

Justin set up his hammock after the art party. Everyone enjoyed some time swinging in the hammock. That was fun. Now we are enduring a week of wind. Yesterday the wind was sustained at 30-40 mph. Today it is even worse, 40-50 mph sustained. We often get wind here but usually 20-30 mph with 50 mph gusts, rarely sustained. Our house is whistling and ghostly drafts are ruffling all our curtains.

Last month Amelia started making a list of possible ideas for her birthday party. Can you tell she was a bit excited? We kept narrowing down the list until she had two possibilities: Frozen or Artist party. I totally played her and helped her decide on an artist party. It seemed like an easy, fun idea. I suggest we could have face painting...oh my. That hit a chord with her. She started searching on YouTube for the perfect face painting ideas. She finally decided on a unicorn Pegasus mask. Then she started helping the boys pick face painting ideas. It was the best ever!

She invited over her church class plus a couple other friends from school and church. Robbie Wood helped man the face painting station with me. Evelyn and Justin worked on crowd control for the other stations. We had face painting, water bottle spray painting, chalk paint, finger paint, and canvas painting. It was amazing. The best part was the weather. No wind. Let me repeat that: no wind. Talk about a miracle in Nebraska. Evelyn came over early to help cut a rainbow of fresh fruit. I made two cakes because the first cake turned out too crumbly. I made a white cake according to directions, it needed the egg yolks bind the ingredients. The kids ate both cakes. Most of the time the cake is wasted. Not this time! Amelia chose a rainbow cake with banana frosting. It was pretty yummy to the tummy.

Everett was so darn cute with his tiger face. He ran around with his tiger face painting things and getting dirty. Phillip decided on a dinosaur face, that lasted until he painted his canvas into an ocean. He wanted an ocean face (and arms, and neck, and legs, etc). After the party he got into the face paint and went to town smearing blue paint all over. Course he also helped Everett improve his tiger face. Amelia's mask turned out better than I thought it would! For my first face painting job it was pretty amazing. The kids got to take home their canvas, a set pf paints, and a smock. Justin said that was the best kid party he's ever been to. Now that is a compliment.

Our little Amelia Jean. What a sweet and beautiful girl she is growing up to be. It seems just yesterday I was holding her sweet newborn body with those alert and wise eyes. Now she is a big sister to three siblings. She is very helpful around the house and especially keeping her brothers entertained. At 7 she:

-will finish 1st grade in 3 weeks
-is in her 3rd year of ballet
-can ride a bike, about to learn how to ride with no training wheels (she is our cautious child)
-started learning to play the piano
-is a reading champion
-can do addition and subtraction sums
-is an amazing artist, can color very well
-has neat hand writing
-loves to play house or family games with her brothers
-can put the silverware away, set the table, and clean the bathroom
-is learning how to bead, do projects that take more concentration
-is very snuggly, loves to get snuggles from mom and dad
-can sing in tune and remember song lyrics
-has a very vivid imagination
-can whine with the best
-has some amazing posing skills
-lost 6 teeth in the last year

We had 50 eye-popping colored eggs begging for some
Easter-style hunting. The kids were excited to search for eggs. I think we hid
the eggs 3-4 times. Everett was the most fun this year. He had the silliest
expressions on his face as he found eggs. He would spot an egg then talk about
how he saw an egg, point at the egg, then finally run and get it.

Evelyn FINALLY decided to roll over on her own. She rolled
over Wednesday night from her tummy to back. I was not worried…yet. She is
developing much like Everett did. I am not sure she will crawl; maybe we have
another butt scooter. This week she also started razzing her tongue and lips.
It is so cute.

The rest of the week felt really busy with unpacking,
laundry, and recovering from our trip. Thursday I spent much of the day getting
prepared for a Passover dinner I taught for the RS ladies. Only 9 ladies showed
up, we did not get the event announced very well. I actually preferred the
intimate setting. I had the Seder plates prepared with an egg, roasted meat,
bitter herbs, Haroset, lettuce, salt water, onions, and bread. We read a talk
given back in 1990 by Terry Treseder and watched two LDS.org videos on the Last
Supper and the Garden of Gethsemane. The spirit was present as we learned about
the sacrament and Passover. Justin was at work so the kids played in the RS
room.